But He Didn't Ask!

Here is my story. (Sorry Mom. I didn't tell you directly since I didn't want you to worry. That is also how I figured out you really didn't understand Facebook. This was quite the story for a couple of days.)

Billy works in Arkansas the first week of every month. If you spend any time at all watching our house our schedules are very evident. We have to park on the street so it doesn't take an Einstein to know when I'm home alone. My next door neighbor also works in Jackson Monday through Thursday every week so I'm pretty isolated for a few days each month.

But I have a whole pack of dogs in the house so I'm never really worried.

Until this month.

I had dozed off watching the college football BCS championship game (8:15 at night, sad really that I can't stay awake past 8!) and was awakened by the phone ringing. It was my neighbor. He was calling to say that he had seen a flashlight in our backyard. He didn't really think about it at first (told me later that he didn't give it a second thought until it snapped off quickly when he closed his car door) and then decided that I might want to know about it. A polite way of saying he got to the end of his driveway and saw that I was home alone.

I looked outside and didn't see anything, but I kept all the outside lights on all night. Didn't sleep too well either. But I had called the police for some extra patrols and did see them drive by a few times.

It was cold that week. So cold that our downstairs pipes froze the next night. Also so cold that our downstairs stayed in the 40s so me and the puppy dogs all stayed upstairs where it was a toasty 68. So I'm up early on Saturday morning, no longer worried about getting to work, and went outside to see if anything had burst under the house. Nothing had so I'm headed back in the house. Happy, if only for a moment.

And there it was. A bright orange metal coffee cup in the bushes up by the front porch.

And it wasn't ours.

I knew it wasn't ours but I called Billy just to make sure. We'd had no one working on the house and we're up on a hill so no one could have thrown it out the car window and had it land there and it was way to heavy to have blown up there.

So now, I'm a little freaked out.

Mostly because our house is up off the ground and you can easily sit up under there. I can almost stand straight up under there, but I'm short. (Vertically challenged I think they call it). But it looked to me like someone had been up under there.

Not that I don't understand. Thursday night was raining, Friday was cold. It would have offered a port in the storm, so to speak.

Another visit to the police station. A very nice female officer follows me home to check things out and starts asking me if there is a weapon in the house. The look on my face prompted the follow-up question of whether or not there was a weapon that I was comfortable using.

No would be the answer to that question.

Monday morning staff meeting (notice how I've almost forgotten about the frozen pipes and Billy did come home on Sunday morning - early) and the talk all around the table is the newspaper headlines that a man was arrested Sunday morning inside the house catty-corner from ours.

Way way too darn close if you ask me!

Anyway, we concluded, rightly or wrongly, that the guy they picked up had to be the same one that had been in my yard and I was glad I didn't have to worry anymore.

On of my coworkers made the comment that any stray dog we see gets picked up and brought inside but the man under the house wasn't welcome.

I know he was only partially kidding, but the man didn't ask. We don't chase after strays to bring them home, they come to us. Usually walk right up to us with eyes that are asking for help. So we accommodate them.

We give them shelter and food and keep them safe while they are in our care. We try very hard to find their families or, if not, a good home - that isn't ours. Yes, a good many have ended up staying but we bring in dogs, and the occasional cat, all the time that end up going home a few hours later. They just slipped away from their owners temporarily and we help them find their way back.

I hadn't thought about it much since then but my coworker made another comment this past Monday. Billy and I scooped up a puppy Saturday afternoon that was running up a very busy street. He isn't but about 3 or 4 months old and has two collars on so I know he belongs to someone. We spent a couple of hours on Saturday knocking on doors to find his family. We were back out on Sunday morning posting Found! signs. Billy took more out yesterday and I placed an ad in the paper today.

Someone is missing this little guy. We don't intend to keep him. I already have a lead on another family if they can't find the puppy they lost over the weekend (not the same one, we've checked) and our little guy's family doesn't claim him. But the comment was made in passing "but the guy under the house wasn't welcome."

He didn't ask!

I certainly tried not to take it personally, I'm always a little sensitive, but that little dig has hit a nerve with me. I've helped a lot people. Most of which I never told to anyone. I believe that you do things to help others because it is the right thing to do, not so that someone can acknowledge how "good" you are. BUT I do tend to draw the line on people just assuming that I'm good natured and prowling around my house. Even if all they are looking for is shelter.

I'm not foolish. I don't open the doors to strangers and so forth. And no, I probably wouldn't have let a perfect stranger hang out under my house to get out of the rain - even if he had asked. The world is not a safe place.

Sad, but true.

But I do, sometimes, wish people would be careful with their comments. That goes for me as well. There is no telling how many times I've made some off-hand remark, probably attempting to be funny, that was taken the wrong way. We don't always know what is lying beneath someone's surface and the most innocent of words can wound deeply.

Now, as I said, I've let it go. I know, at least I think I know, he didn't honestly mean anything and I think, at least I hope, he knows that I'd help any human in need that I can possibly help.

All they have to do is ask.